The Bellona report has some interesting information in it if you know nothing about the Fukushima disaster, but its calculations for the radiation released from the plant from March 11, 2011 to present are vast understatements.

On Page 6 the report describes Fukushima as having had "very low plutonium releases (possibly 100,000 times less than Chernoby. . .)"

This is absurd. Unit 3 had mox fuel and the reactor and spent fuel pool in unit 3 were compromised. Chernobyl had 1 reactor that burned for 10 days. Fukushima has four to six reactors and a common spent fuel pool that have burned on and off for a year and a half.

I grant that the fact is we don't know exactly how much plutonium was released because Tepco and international experts have been very quiet on this issue.

Very, very, very quiet.

But not everyone has been quiet on the issue of the plutonium dangers posed by Fukushima.

Although the amount of Mox fuel stored at the plant has not been reported, one source that suggests that unit 3’s reactor core contained a range of 164 - 32 mox assemblies. The low end estimate of 32 mox assemblies was provided by France’s Areva, which provided the fuel for unit 3.

Speaking at press conference on March 25, 2011, Dr. Yablokov, author of Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, warned of the potential scale of the Fukushima disaster given plutonium fuel was involved :

[Yablokov] We are seeing something that has never happened – a multiple reactor catastrophe including one using plutonium fuel as well as spent fuel pool accidents, all happening within 200 kilometers of a metropolis of 30 million people. Because the area is far more densely populated than around Chernobyl, the human toll could eventually be far worse in Japan… I am not optimistic about the situation at Fukushima. . .It’s especially dangerous if plutonium is released as inhalation of plutonium results in a high probability of cancer. A release of plutonium will contaminate that area forever and it is impossible to clean up.http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/03/25-4

Also speaking at the press conference was Cindy Folkers, radiation and health specialist at Beyond Nuclear :

[Folkers] At Fukushima, our concern is not just the immediate exposures, but exposures that occur over the long term, from radioactive particles that are inhaled or ingested. . . These particles can fall on soil and in water and end up in the food supply for many years. We are worried that officials are measuring only the radiation that is the easiest to detect – gamma rays. Testing people for radiation on their skin or clothing is necessary, but it tells us little or nothing about what they could have breathed in or eaten—which results in internal exposure and long-term risk.http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/03/25-4

Dr. Yablokov concluded “When you hear ‘no immediate danger’ then you should run away as far and as fast as you can.”

I've posted that I believe quite a bit of plutonium was released and I'm not the only person who holds this position.

So, I say this Bellano report is just a propaganda piece in the form of "limited hangout"

The report simply re-states what every one knows about unit 4 because of publicity in the US and from Japanese dignitaries.

But, it also smuggles in absurd statements, such as the one above, about plutonium releases being a tiny tiny fraction of what was released by Chernobyl.

It never mentions other nuclear plants reported damaged in Japan . A report titled “Lessons From Fukushima Dai-ichi ” issued October 28, 2011 by BBT University President asserted that fourteen nuclear reactors in Japan were extensively damaged by the earthquake. Reports of fires and radiological water spills at the reactors in Tokai lent support to concerns about widespread damage to nuclear reactors in Japan.

More specifically, I think the Bellona report is another "plant," just like the mice study in Environmental Health Perspectives on gamma radiation 400X background.

That study on mice was used to argue that the evacuation zone mandate around nuclear plants is excessive and needs to be reduced. (see my posts below)

This Holophi report is a plant designed to inoculate us against linking illnesses and birth defects to Fukushima.

No consulting company or government is going to tell the truth about Fukushima.

We have to figure it out for ourselves.

SOME SOURCES ON RADIATION RELEASED FROM FUKUSHIMA

"The 2,000 tons of nuclear fuel at the Fukushima Daiichi Plant is estimated to contain about 20,000,000 tb of radiation. This means that the Fukushima plants holds an accumulated total radiation equivalent to 138 times the amount that leaked from the Chernobyl plant, or 24% of the total radiation released during the history of atmospheric nuclear tests." (Fujioka Atsush http://www.japanfocus.org/-Fujioka-Atsushi/3599)

"The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daichi site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing…" (Robert Alvarez cited here http://akiomatsumura.com/2012/04/682.html)

4 comments:

So Majia with this blog, you have now reached the point where your students would ask: "If what you say is true, then what is our future?".

And of course you don't know the answer to that question - and neither does anyone else. But what you do know is that such an occurence will undoubtedly alter the future significantly from the past.

This is the dilemma I pondered on March 14, 2011 after I saw the #3 core blow sky high. Despite all the rhetoric and the claims to the contrary; that it was a hydrogen explosion, or an explosion in the fuel pool or some other nonsense - I knew better then, and you know better now.

But it still does not answer the question. "What now". It is this question I've pondered for the past 15 months - with no answer.

I've tried my best to provide warning - mostly to no avail. Even the ones educated on Enenews about what is happening, really didn't want to know this secret.

I've concluded that the public not only doesn't know, but really doesn't want to know this bad of news either.

I agree the report is propaganda, but I don't think it says exactly what is claimed here. I think the report says the releases of Pu were far smaller _per unit of material present_. This is probably correct, since Chernobyl had no containment.

It's also very evasive, since there was very little plutonium at Chernobyl. So it says exactly nothing useful about how much plutonium has been released at Fukushima.

The statement saying "possibly 100,000 times less than Chernobyl" is technically true.

Because we don't know the exact amount, the statement "possibly 100,000 times more than Chernobyl" is equally true.

As long as you preface with "possibly" then anything you say could be true - it's a universal qualifier.

The purpose of the statement in this context is so that it will get picked up and and quoted by other publications without the universal qualifier. It's a form of planting false information without having to actually lie. It's misleading and unethical, and smart people can see right through it, but these folks aren't trying to trick the smart people.

About Me

I am a Professor at a large public university. I study political economy and biopolitics (the politics of life). My interests are diverse but are broadly concerned with economic, social and environmental justice. I have published 5 books: Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy and Ecological Sustainability: The Threat of Financial and Energy Complexes in the Twenty-First Century (2016); Fukusima and the Privatization of Risk (2013); Constructing Autism (2005); Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life (2008/2011); Governing Childhood (2010).
I also participated in an edited collection on Fukushima: Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization (2014).